Facebook and Privacy

Before I get into today’s post, I do want to wish you a happy Memorial Day holiday. Jen and I are really enjoying our three day weekend, and I hope you are as well. Also, thanks to all the veterans, and those who are no longer with us, for serving our country.

I feel confident in saying that by this time you have heard about the uproar over the changes in Facebook’s privacy settings. Many people strenuously objected to these changes, and many threatened to leave Facebook. However, some mass exodus did not happen, and Facebook responded (in a way) to the complaints of its users. Still, the erosion or privacy rights on the internet is a topic getting a great deal of attention in libraryland, and so I thought I might share a few things here.

First, as an information professional, privacy and anonymity on the internet are incredibly important to ensuring net neutrality as well as allowing the internet to be the “sandbox” of ideas that it is today. Privacy on the internet also plays a part in “future-proofing” the internet, as the FCC wants to do (if the courts will allow it). So, before we go further, maintaining the privacy of internet users from anyone is incredibly important.

However, there are a few strong objections I have to people complaining about privacy concerns, specifically on Facebook, and more broadly on social networking sites. Facebook, by its very nature, is designed to share personal information with others. I would presume, perhaps erroneously, that people understand this when they sign up. Why, then, should you put all of your personal information on the site? Why share more than you are comfortable with sharing and being in the public eye? To be fair, maybe I am making something out of nothing, but it seems apparent to me that people should think about what is shared online before they put that personal information out there in the first place.

In addition, something that people of my age and younger need to understand is self-editing. Maybe you went out and had a wild night on the town last night - and maybe Aunt Edna and your boss should not know about that. Also, complaining about your workplace, or sharing confidential information, should never be done on Facebook, or in a public forum for that matter. Once it’s on the internet, you really have no control over what happens to what you post.

One of the overall ideas librarians are trying to foster in the public is the concept of information literacy. For many librarians, this is simply helping patrons determining what is and is not “good” information on the internet, but to me it is a broader concept, helping people determine how to function in out information environment today - including best practices for social networking and such.

Anyhow, here’s a great link if you want to check your privacy settings on Facebook, as recommended by the ALA:

Facebook Privacy Scanner

Update

Well, it has been ten days since my last update. Sorry. I realize that you, reader, expect to see a post from me every weekday and I have not delivered. I think I am back on top of my blogging skills, so check back Monday. In the meantime, allow me to update you on my summer.

First, as you already know, I am interning at the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame. In their overall collection, they have a collection of about 4500 images of cowgirls - inductees, as well as well-known cowgirls from history. I am working on assessing the collection to determine what has been digitized, if the photos are stored archival, and if the metadata about the photos is appropriate in the collection management software of the museum. Thus far, I have sorted through about 500 images, so I have 4,000 to go. I’ll give some updates now and again as I go through the collection this summer.

Second, I am in management class this summer. It started just last week, so I have very little to report, other than that I ordered my books, and that gave Jen and I an opportunity to order a few books from our respective wish lists. I’ll let Jen tell you about hers if and when she so chooses, but here is a link showing one of the books I bought (and am very excited about reading):

The L!brary Book: Design Collaborations in the Public Schools (Princeton Architectural Press) documents the unique partnership between the New York City Department of Education, the Robin Hood Foundation, and architects, designers, artists and illustrators that has produced 56 libraries (to date) in schools across the five boroughs. Written by Anooradha Iyer Siddiqi...

Check out some of the murals they did:

http://www.pentagram.com/en/new/2009/03/murals-for-the-library-initiat.php

Man, isn’t that cool?

Third, I am still doing work at the Carter in many areas. I still need to catalog that Diderot, but recently I have been working on the library and archives’ elements for the 50th anniversary celebration of the museum, as well as doing some research to support efforts for that project. I can’t tell you much about it, but it really is going to be very cool.

I’ll keep you posted as things go along this summer. You should do the same.

So, reader, what have you been doing??

iPad: One Month

One month (or so) has passed since we bought an iPad, and I thought you might be curious to know how that is working our for us. I think mine will join many other bloggers writing about this, but I am not them, so here we go.

Confession: the iPad is not my constant companion. I don’t take it everywhere, nor do I use it all the time. I suppose there are people out there who use theirs all the time, but really I don’t find myself in situations where the iPad is useful all the time.

More specifically, what do I use it for?

Over the past two weeks, I have used it most every morning to read the news. The New York Times app is wonderful, and brings me a selection of headlines that change as the day progresses. I think others might lament that you cannot see the whole paper, but I prefer having someone curate the articles beforehand, so there is less to choose from. I realize that this is a bit like our grandparents reading the paper every morning over breakfast, and on some level, that appeals to me as well. The key difference (or advantage) for me is twofold: that the iconic graphic identity of the Times is preserved, and reading articles on the iPad is far preferable to reading them on a traditional computer, regardless of if they are in a reader, or their native website. Here is a screenshot of what I was reading yesterday:


I also love watching video podcasts and videos in general on the iPad. They look wonderful, and it’s great to be able to have the video wherever you want it. I have watched many TEDTalks on this, and plan to continue doing so!

When we do take the iPad places, it is excellent for sharing photos. The ability to utilize faces and places from both iPhoto and Aperture is wonderful, and our grandparents (who normally have a hard time with this stuff) loved seeing photos on it, and had no problem seeing them.

I would say I use the iPad about an hour a day at this point, though that might change as time goes on.

What are my complaints? Well, wifi reception is pretty awful. In our living room I get spotty reception, and that is not very far from our router. Hopefully, Apple will be able to improve this with a software update. Also, Facebook needs an iPad app.

Do you have an iPad? What do you think about it? Any questions for me? Let me hear from you!

Internship: Day One

Well, readers, today is the first day of my internship for my MSLIS. I am working with the photography collection of the National Cowgirl Museum here in Fort Worth, and I am excited to see what all that entails. I’ll tell you more about it soon!

Jason

Cosby’s New Treehouse

In trying to come up with some new (and hopefully interesting) topics for this week, I realized that our great kitty, Cosby, has gotten relatively little “press” here over the past few weeks. I don’t think that’s fair, and he’s been asking me to write something about him, so this one is for you, Cos.

This past weekend, Jen and I went over to IKEA in Frisco to browse and pick up a couple of things. Before I describe what it is we bought, I want to tell you that nothing else gives me tired-head faster than a trip to IKEA when it is busy. Folks shopping in there generally do not know what they want, so they mosey along with no concern for others or time in general. I suppose that’s what annoys me most about those folks - is their complete lack of concern for other people.

Well, I just wanted to say that, now let’s move on.

For the past several weeks, Cosby has been keeping Jen and I up almost all night every night as he tries to see out our bedroom windows, or maybe he just wanted us to be awake. Either way, he was really keeping us up at night, and Jen suggested that we raise the blinds up all the way, and replace our curtains with something a bit better, allowing us privacy but letting Cosby get in the windows so he could see out. So, we shopped for, and found some lovely and inexpensive curtains. I can report that thus far, this plan has worked wonderfully, and Jen and I have had two much-improved nights of sleep.

When going through the pet area in IKEA, we found what I can only describe as a treehouse for cats. We saw the item previously, but went armed with measurements to make sure it would fit. We found that it did, and that it was on sale, so we bought it. However, we failed to make sure it would fit in our car! With some “doing” it did fit, but only just.

After some assembly and such, I am happy to tell you that Cosby loves his new treehouse. He likes to observe from the top level, and sleep on the second level, where we have made a little bed for him. Here’s a video of him in it so you can see for yourself.





http://www.flickr.com/photos/eloquentlight/4614161260/

Spring Semester Reflections

As of Friday of last week, I have completed my Spring semester at Syracuse in pursuit of my MSLIS. I have Summer and Fall to go, and I plan on completing my degree in December. Honestly, you probably already knew that, so let’s get right down to it - what was my semester like now that it has passed?

This was the busiest academic semester I have ever had, frankly. I don’t want to whine and moan about it, but I will tell you why in the course of this post. If you’ll allow me to toot my own horn a bit, I will share that I earned a 4.0 this semester, and have received very positive feedback on all my assignments this semester. Of course, I am still just a fledgling librarian, but I cannot say that doing well in my classes is injurious to my career.

That said, what did I take this semester?

Well, my final two required courses are out of the way now - the first of these required courses was IST 616 - Information Resources, Organization and Access. I called this class “basic cataloging and classification.” The course explored cataloging standards and formats (aka metadata) as well as looked broadly at classification schemes. I really enjoyed the broad view used in this class - I was exposed to many different standards and practices, making me a much more adaptable librarian. Here is a pretty good example of the “stuff” I did this semester:

















http://www.scribd.com/doc/30301737/Social-Tagging-Library-of-Congress%E2%80%99-Subject-Headings-and-Library-Catalogs
















The other required class was IST 613 - Library Planning, Marketing, and Assessment. The workload in this class was among the heaviest I have had, but in the end I produced a comprehensive project plan for a local library. As I know more, I will share it on here, but I have been asked to implement the plan. Fun! The course provided me with real-world project planning experience, which is very useful in my career.

And finally, what might have been my favorite class thus far, IST 604 - Cataloging of Information Resources. This class was an in-depth look at metadata creation, specifically with AACR2 and MARC. The class was very congenial, and it became more of a seminar type class rather than a normal class, with students and professor all working together and discussing.

Overall, I feel that I have really matured as a student and as a professional this semester, and have integrated many new concepts into my knowledge schema.

Yale Library Studies

Reader,

Thanks for bearing with me - the end of the semester has passed, and my work is all turned in. It’s nice to get positive feedback on tasks which required a great deal of work. More on that later.

For now, I want to share with you that I am reading the 2009 issue of Yale Library Studies. This issue examines library architecture at Yale, and more broadly library architecture in general. Expect to see some design related library posts soon. Here’s a snippet:

To what extent do the Library's many buildings embody the ideals and aspirations of the University? Do the scholars and students who use these buildings find in them not just the books and collections but also the environment the need to help them teach and study and learn? And what, in a twenty-first century library system, is the relationship between the virtual environment found on the computer or handheld device and the physical built environment?

How would you answer those questions?